


Day 3: Bait

by Magpie_Crow



Series: Inktober 2019 [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Dark Logan, M/M, One Sided Logicality - Freeform, Villain Logan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 23:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20882495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpie_Crow/pseuds/Magpie_Crow
Summary: A highwayman came riding down, down he came riding, right to the old inn door.





	Day 3: Bait

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Teen for violence/blood

The wind buffeted the closed shutters of the inn, singing its love song to the clouded moon. A highwayman came riding down the thin moonlight ribbon of the road across the purple hills. Down, down he came riding, right to the old inn door. 

His hat was pulled low over one side of his face, as if to hide the dull red birthmark stretching down from his temple to his chin. A pristine white lace cravat spilled down to the silver buttons of his wine-colored coat. His boots were of supple brown leather, and fit like a glove. The light of the moon caressed the butts of his pistols and the hilt of his rapier, setting them a-glitter with an unearthly light. 

The horse clattered into the cobblestone yard, coming to a halt beneath one of the closed windows. The highwayman raised his whip and tapped it against the shutters.  
There was no movement. No response.

He smiled and whistled a tune to the window, and it swung open without hesitation. Waiting for him was Patton, the landlord’s son, the landlord’s blue eyed son, brushing a silver comb through his golden hair.

“Kiss me quickly, sweetheart. I’m after a prize. I’ll return, with jewels and gold, before morning.” He paused, a hand lifted towards the boy in the window. “If they chase after me, if they come for me during the day, look for me by moonlight?” Smiling, he continued. “I’ll come back to you by moonlight, though all hell bar the way.”

The highwayman stood up high in his stirrups, and Patton bent low over the casement to take his hand. Both blushed as the highwayman kissed the tips of Patton’s fingers, and, with a wave, rode away into the night. 

Neither noticed a shadow in the yard, where the scholar, Logan listened, his hands gripping a book with white knuckles. He loved the landlord’s son, the sunkissed landlord’s son, and wouldn’t let a thief get in his way.

~~

He did not return before dawn, nor did he follow noon, but as the sun was setting west, a troop of guards came marching. Up, up the King’s men came marching, up to the old inn door. 

They spoke a while with Logan, and said nothing to the landlord. They drank the ale the inn provided instead. Soon they gagged Patton, and bound him to the foot of his bed. Two of them knelt at his window, loaded muskets leaning next to them. 

There was death, at every window. There was hell at Patton’s window, for he could see the winding, moonlit ribbon road where the highwayman would ride. The guards were using him. They were using him as bait.

They had tied him up rigid, facing out the window of his bedroom. Logan himself had bound a gun to Patton’s side, facing up into his chest. 

“It is for your own good, you know,” Logan said, before he kissed him; then turned to wait downstairs in the tavern. 

_“Look for me by moonlight, I’ll come back to you by moonlight, though all hell bar the way.”_ His lover’s words pounded in his ears as the moon rose steadily through the sky. He pulled at his bounds, seeking a weakness in the knots. None were forthcoming. He twisted and struggled until his fingers were wet and slippery with sweat and blood. 

He stretched and strained in the darkness, until finally, on the stroke of midnight, the tip of one finger touched the cold steel of the trigger. He did not struggle more, for fear of being caught. Of being stopped. Patton’s blood pounded through his veins, to the beat of his heart and his lover’s refrain.

A distant sound rang through the darkness, clear as a bell to the boy standing tall. The guards seemed not to notice, but Patton saw the highwayman, silhouetted in the moonlight, come riding over the hill. Nearer, nearer he came riding, and the guards began to prime their guns, readying to take deadly aim.

Patton’s eyes grew wide, and he took one deep, steadying breath. His finger moved, and the still of the moonlight shattered. He had warned the highwayman, warned him with his death.

~~

The highwayman turned and spurred his horse, back to the west. He did not know who stood bowed over the musket, drenched in his own blood. 

It wasn’t until dawn that he found out. How Patton, the landlord’s son, the landlord’s blue-eyed son, had watched for him by moonlight, and had died alone in darkness.

With a wild cry, like a wounded beast, he rode. The dust rose from the road behind him, and his rapier flashed in the early morning light. 

His spurs looked red in the golden noon, matching his velvet coat. His eyes were bright beneath his dull blemish when they shot him down on the highway. 

He fell, down like a dog, on the highway, and lay in his blood in the sunlight, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry.
> 
> This was blatantly inspired by The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. It was one of my favorite poems when I was younger, and fit the prompt so well.  
My best friend read it over and her only comment was "How dare you"
> 
> I set up a Discord server! <https://discord.gg/gtWgvQ4>  
Join me to talk about my writing and stuff!
> 
> Find more on my tumblr @we-are-fam-ily


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